Beech Tree News Network

“If you can keep your head when all those around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…”  That’s the first line from Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, and it has become my personal mantra.  I think because lately, I seem to find myself in the sort of situations that warrant repetition of that line.  It’s probably because of the toehold that fear has gained in the collective psyche.  It’s understandable in the face of the barely-existent job market, congressional bickering, and fiscal cliff. 
    For too many years, I was the chicken without its head.  I am grateful for the people who learned their “If” lesson long before they came into contact with me, people who were patient with my fear and gnashing of teeth.  When the voice of reason that keeps me between the lines begins to lose its sway over me, and I start to veer off the path, I remember one person in particular who always put things into perspective for me.
    My Grandma Stone was my dad’s mom.  Her life was a lesson in longsuffering.  She was left in the middle of the Great Depression with five young children.  She sewed and washed and worked what jobs came her way in order to keep her children fed.  There were older women in the extended family that helped watch the children, and Grandma gave them a lot of credit for her family’s survival.
    As a young woman, I would talk to Grandma Stone about the chaos in the world around us, as well as my own personal chaos.  She said some things during those talks that I have never forgotten.  The one message that came through loud and clear involved the end of the world as we know it.
    “You know, since I was a little girl, people have been saying that the end of the world is just around the corner,” she said.  “Every time there was an earthquake or a flood or a war, people would point to those things as proof that it was knocking at the door.  When WWII started, we sure felt like it was the end of the world, but it wasn’t.  The end of the world will come when it comes, and there’s no need of wasting your time looking out the window for it.”
    It took me a lot of years to really understand what she was saying, but I finally caught on.  Grandma Stone lived her kind of “get up every day, put one foot in front of the other, and don’t always be looking out the window for trouble” life until the day she died.  My favorite Christmas story is one of her own.  I might have told you this story before.  I’m old people, and sometimes I can’t remember what I’ve said or written, so please bear with me.
    It was Christmas Eve many years ago.  Grandma Stone’s two youngest children still lived at home.  Grandma was in her living room, mending clothes and talking to Aunt Mat, the kids’ grandmother.  “I wish I just had five dollars, so I could get Helen and Leroy a pair of gloves for Christmas,” she said.  She had barely gotten the words out of her mouth when there was a knock at the door.  It was a man from a local church. 
    “Ma’am, if you wouldn’t be offended,” he said, “We try to help out widows and orphans around Christmas, and we would like to give you five dollars.”
    Grandma didn’t spend her time looking out the window for the end of the world.  She was too busy living and working and hoping for the occasional miracle for her children.
    During WWII, the British, who were being bombed by Germany, put up signs around London that stated simply: Keep Calm And Carry On.  There is a reproduction of that sign hanging on one of my walls.  It is a reminder from Grandma and her kind to stop looking out the window.